Carnivals, old sleds revisited in Caribou

CARIBOU – Kendall Sutherland eased his 1964 Moto Ski around the Caribou Historical Society grounds Saturday, at the beck and call of anyone wanting to see what snowmobiling was like 40 years ago.

It was a bright day with enough warmth allowing him to demonstrate without all the clothing that normally encumbers snowmobilers.

It was easy for the “old snowmobile” enthusiast to do his thing.

His snowmobile, an 8-horsepower model, had none of the amenities of more recent machines. He sat on a 2-inch-thick seat, started the machine with a pull cord and slowly moved over the snowbank, across a field and into a parking lot.

“Nice machine,” a man said as he walked across the parking lot to a chicken stew lunch at the society’s museum on Route 1.

Ralph Ostlund, 81, of New Sweden, a Nordic skier who started his hobby more than seven decades ago, was inside greeting people, answering questions about the display of photographs of Caribou’s 70 years of winter carnival extravaganzas.

“That [ice cutting of decades ago] was quite a thing,” Ostlund said to Gilbert Hitchcock of Caribou in the society’s museum as they looked at photos.

Along with skis made in New Sweden, the society had an old bobsled, unpainted and most likely made of wood found around homes decades ago.

“I started skiing when I was 4 years old,” Ostlund said. “I stopped for a while, during my working years, until 30 years ago.

“Yes, I’ve skied with and against Sam Ouellette, but it was after his prime,” he said. “[Ouellette] skied in the Bangor-to-Caribou marathon, a four-day ski race.”

Ostlund doesn’t talk much of his own skiing abilities; he has scores of trophies to show. He still competes and until two years ago was still skiing 600 to 700 miles a year.

“I wasn’t planning on slowing down, but I had to,” he said. “I’m happy to be able to do the skiing I can when the weather allows.”

Ostlund was one of 16 people sickened by arsenic-laced coffee at a church social two years ago in New Sweden. It caused him some leg problems, and his skiing has slowed. Still, he did more than 100 miles last year.

He hoped to ski in Sunday’s Henry Anderson Ski Dag, one of scores of activities during the Caribou Winter Carnival. Sunday was the last day of the event.

Members of the Caribou Historical Society displayed their photos, news articles and artifacts, which included wooden cross-country skis and snowshoes from 70 years of the Caribou Winter Carnival.

Nancy Bubar worked most of the year setting up the display.

The Caribou Winter Carnival and Snowmobile Festival started in 1935 and now includes 10 days of activities.

The displays include photos of ice cutting on Collins Pond, the building of ice houses and castles, ice races with horses on the Aroostook River, snowshoeing photos, old carnival posters, and photos of the huge log haulers and a miniature train that used to run along Sweden Street in Caribou.

Downstairs at the society museum were scores of antiquities, including all kinds of tools, many found on family farms and homesteads. There were also artifacts from physicians’ offices in Caribou and displays on local war efforts as far back as World War I.